The Brown Knight wrote:
Why was Hamhuis able to adjust so well to our system while Ballard did not? Is that Mike Gillis' fault?

Um well, cause Ballard has always been known as an unpredictable dumb ass on the ice playing his own game instead of the team game and Hamhius, pretty much the opposite has been known as a sound, stable d-man with great hockey sense. Does that help? I know you might like to think so, along with the rest of the Weird Gillis Love here, but I did not make that up Great Brown Knight of Gotham.

Agree with you that Ballard hasn't always been the greatest in his own end, but look at these stats:

Look at how he performed in Florida..........and then how he performed here from a point production standpoint:

The Brown Knight wrote:
-I actually like what Gillis did with the Booth deal, but Booth has just had a lot of bad luck health wise. If he gets back on track however, this deal could still pay off. Booth is still young enough to get back to living up to his potential.

Ain't happening, I would say we have a better chance of Jesus Christ re-appearing than that happening. I mean, how long has this been going on with Booth? I mean according to some, David is gonna wake up on the cusp of 30 years old and be an amazing hockey player. Like he just figured it out.

I'm not a fan of Booth's cap hit, but it's not like we gave up the world to get him. We gave up a complete piece of poo in Marco Sturm, along with an aging and declining Samuelson who would be a UFA anyways. If I'm correct, he only has 2 more years left on his contract anyways.

Booth had (had?) a decent amount of potential in him, and had good size. He was young and was big, and the Canucks needed to get younger and bigger.

The times that Booth has been in the line-up and has been healthy, he hasn't looked too bad.

I'm not trying to say that the deal was a flying success........but I also think that some unfortunate and untimely injuries to Booth may have made the deal look worse than it actually was.

RoyalDude wrote:Personally I'd take Erhoff cause he is great offensively and good defensively.

I agree with you on this one.

We should never have let Erhoff walk.

After it became obvious that Ballard wasn't fitting in well here, while Erhoff was such a key component to our PP and defense in general, Gillis should have waived Ballard and kept Erhoff ( on a side note though - would we have been on the hook for Ballard's salary had we done so?). Also - Buffalo offered Erhoff a huge up front signing bonus and a ridiculously highly front loaded contract. I can't remember what our cap situation was at the time, but Gillis may have had his hands tied? I honestly can't recall.

It's exciting to see Horvat and Shinkaruk off to a good start, Horvat, in particular. I don't think Shinkaruk has much to prove offensively in the WHL, but it would definitely be nice for Horvat to dominate offensively in the OHL and prove some of his doubters wrong. Close to a goal a game pace? I doubt they can keep it up.

While Horvat has been playing well since returning from the Vancouver Canucks – 13 points in nine games – he did seem to take his Knights teammates along for the ride Thursday night and perhaps for good reason.

Shinkaruk was invisible. He's played himself off the team. Kind of goes with the shitty season he's having in Medicine Hat.

Horvat looked great. We should all send Nonis thank you cards for his great drafting of Schneider late in the first round. What a genius pick. I will take my hat off for Gillis parlaying Nonis prized pick into another good prospect.

"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate

Shinkaruk was invisible. He's played himself off the team. Kind of goes with the shitty season he's having in Medicine Hat.

Horvat looked great. We should all send Nonis thank you cards for his great drafting of Schneider late in the first round. What a genius pick. I will take my hat off for Gillis parlaying Nonis prized pick into another good prospect.

I didn't think as much of Mantha, looked solid and made a couple of nice plays but he didn't stick out as much for me. The Horvat line dominated every time it was on the ice, Horvat does every little thing so well (faceoffs, takeaways, strong on the wall, back checking, etc) and the other two have golden hands. Was fun to watch.

Shinkaruk has a bad hip and bad shoulder, was nowhere near himself. He needs to now stop worrying about the world juniors and take some time off to heal, no use in playing at 50%.

We should all thank Nonis and Burke for putting together this Canucks team, even though only 6 of the 23 (2 for Burke, 3 for Nonis) were their doing. Cheveldayoff is the one to thank for Burrows. That leaves 17 for Gillis, so I figure he should get some of the credit at some point. I think the backhanded compliment you gave Gillis for Horvat is a big step for you RD.

Diehard1 wrote:
Shinkaruk has a bad hip and bad shoulder, was nowhere near himself. He needs to now stop worrying about the world juniors and take some time off to heal, no use in playing at 50%.

We should all thank Nonis and Burke for putting together this Canucks team, even though only 6 of the 23 (2 for Burke, 3 for Nonis) were their doing. Cheveldayoff is the one to thank for Burrows. That leaves 17 for Gillis, so I figure he should get some of the credit at some point. I think the backhanded compliment you gave Gillis for Horvat is a big step for you RD.

I don't think you have enough excuses in their for Shinkaruk, Diehard. How about this, 'he sucked'. But hey, I mean how long has he been back from his injury, the young man? Maybe this might explain why he fell from the top 10 to us in the draft????

Mantha is a beaut, 110%

Gillis Players if Canucks are healthy (Gillis, manager for last 6 seasons)

Forwards

Booth
Higgins
Santorelli
Kassian
Sestito
Weise
Richardson

Previous Managements Forwards (7 Seasons Ago)

Hank Sedin
Dank Sedin
Ryan Kesler
Alex Burrows
Janik Hansen

Gillis Defesneman (GM for last 6 seasons)

Hamhius
Garrison
Tanev
Stanton

Previous Managements (7 Seasons ago) players

Edler
Bieksa

Gillis Goalie - Lack
Previous Management Goalie - Luongo

This team is nothing without the Previous Management Group

Sedin
Sedin
Kesler
Burrows
Hansen
Bieksa
Edler
Luongo

Take these 8 off the team and we are worse than Buffalo and Edmonton combined.

"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate

The Brown Knight wrote:
Why was Hamhuis able to adjust so well to our system while Ballard did not? Is that Mike Gillis' fault?

Um well, cause Ballard has always been known as an unpredictable dumb ass on the ice playing his own game instead of the team game and Hamhius, pretty much the opposite has been known as a sound, stable d-man with great hockey sense. Does that help? I know you might like to think so, along with the rest of the Weird Gillis Love here, but I did not make that up Great Brown Knight of Gotham.

Agree with you that Ballard hasn't always been the greatest in his own end, but look at these stats:

Look at how he performed in Florida..........and then how he performed here from a point production standpoint:

So again - based on those stats from Florida, how was Gillis supposed to know that Ballard would be a flop here?

Again - was Ballard's sharp decline an indication of Gillis' bad judgement, or is this a reflection on Vigneault or even Ballard himself?

Ballard was the result of Vigneault's inept ability to deal and utilize players that he just didn't like. He needs "the right players". Ballard showed up and needed surgery and rehab, he returned, played a couple of games and got hurt again. When he came back he made a few mistakes and that was all she wrote for Keith. Vigneault was done with him. It didn't matter that we had Edler, Bieksa, Alberts, and Rome, all making the same mistakes every game, Ballard was the guy that Vigneault held accountable.....

The Rangers are spinning their wheels and are a completely shit team right now. They weren't much better under Torts, but they sure looked like they wanted it more.

Where Gillis dropped the ball in regards to Ballard was not in trading for him, it was in not trading him back out after it was clear Vigneault preferred AHL call-ups to Ballard.

As for Ballard himself, as far as we can tell from the outside looking in, he was a team guy, never complained publicly, just stuck it out, showed up for work every day, and just never got a chance. Not too many players are going to thrive in a situation like the one he was in. However, there were a few on-ice incidents where I noticed that he might not have been gelling with the guys. Most notably was the way Luongo treated him after he screwed up at center ice and the odd man rush put the puck in our net. Keith went over to Lou to apologize (presumably), and Lou just skated right past him and didn't even acknowledge him, Ballard then slammed his stick on the ice in frustration. Had that been any other guy, I think Louie gives him a stick tap and turns the page. On top of that, Luongo should easily have made that save as the shot came in from above the faceoff circle and the lone defender was doing a very good job of making sure the pass wasn't getting through while Ballard was closing the gap from behind and actually forced the guy to rush the shot.

So really the whole situation is a collage of errors made by three people, and as much as RD likes to pin this one all on GMMG, really Gillis only erred by inaction towards the end.